Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney hints agreement may not be reachable at the EU summit this week.
Speaking in Luxembourg, he told @rtenews "I think it’s too early to say, even though we’re only a few days away from the summit. It’s too early to say whether it’s possible to get a breakthrough this week or whether it will move into next week.”
“What they’re attempting to do here is to write a legal text for an international treaty, that is a Withdrawal Agreement. That means it’s got to be watertight, it’s got to stand up to full scrutiny and legal challenge potientially, and what they’re trying to do is complicated.
“They’re trying to put in place an arrangement that is NI-specific, that protects UK interests and EU interests, in a way that’s quite complex. So we need to give negotiating teams space to do that, I think there is good will and a political determination to get this done.”
“It is being left very late in the day but we shouldn’t write off this summit as a potential opportunity for agreement.”
